One cause of rebuffering on the Touch

[pippin]

Try to improve WiFi reception by moving the Router/Wifi AP or adding a high gain antenna to it.
That said, this won't fix MySB outages, though.

[Mnyb]

there is one generally valid recommendation with computer systems these days:

If you've got problems, don't try to tweak your system.

In most cases, defaults are the best solution and messing around will not improve anything but make it worse.

Yours is a typical case: I know it's a religious discussion about whether it will improve your sq to decode flac on the pc but knowing the touch a bit i will never believe it does until i hear it which i don't.
And fiddling with network settings on the pc attached to a distributed network (as opposed to just a straight cable into the touch) will not alter your sq, no matter what people tell you. It just won't. Under no circumstances. Never. Period.

So what you did was two modifications to improve sound quality that brought you a lot of trouble with zero (or little) benefit.

+1

[Honeyquince]

Try to improve WiFi reception by moving the Router/Wifi AP or adding a high gain antenna to it.
That said, this won't fix MySB outages, though.

Hi Pippin and thanks for this. Yes, I've considered moving my modem router closer to my touch - though this would be a pain. I have noticed tho that reception is running at between 80 and 90% which I would have thought should be ok or should I be aiming for something higher than this?

Cheers,

robert

[pippin]

No, if that's what the Touch reports, it should be fine and the problem is probably related to MySB.
If it's some other device reporting it check for the Touch's value.

[PasTim]

Yours is a typical case: I know it's a religious discussion about whether it will improve your SQ to decode FLAC on the PC but knowing the Touch a bit I will never believe it does until I hear it which I don't.
And fiddling with network settings on the PC attached to a distributed network (as opposed to just a straight cable into the Touch) WILL NOT alter your SQ, no matter what people tell you. It just won't. Under no circumstances. Never. Period.

So what you did was two modifications to improve sound quality that brought you a lot of trouble with zero (or little) benefit.

Who introduced religion? I never suggested the sound quality would be improved by tweaking network settings, not did anyone on this thread as far as I can see. I did say you could get transmission problems, and some people do, even with default settings.

I was interested to try and resolve problems I had, and reported what I found, thinking other people might be interested. Sure, if you don't like tinkering, don't, but some do, and some have to.

It has been suggested elsewhere that reducing the load on the Touch can improve the sound quality, and the effect of transmitting PCM rather than FLAC is measurable (using ADM). Whether one can hear a difference is a different matter. That's not the topic of this thread.

[Phil Leigh]

Who introduced religion? I never suggested the sound quality would be improved by tweaking network settings, not did anyone on this thread as far as I can see. I did say you could get transmission problems, and some people do, even with default settings.

I was interested to try and resolve problems I had, and reported what I found, thinking other people might be interested. Sure, if you don't like tinkering, don't, but some do, and some have to.

It has been suggested elsewhere that reducing the load on the Touch can improve the sound quality, and the effect of transmitting PCM rather than FLAC is measurable (using ADM). Whether one can hear a difference is a different matter. That's not the topic of this thread.

No - that's wrong. ADM reports NO difference when flac or PCM is used - at least that has always been my test result (with both Touch and SB3). If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested to see it / try and reproduce it.

[pippin]

Who introduced religion? I never suggested the sound quality would be improved by tweaking network settings, not did anyone on this thread as far as I can see. I did say you could get transmission problems, and some people do, even with default settings.

I didn't introduce religion, I said it's a religious discussion and that's what it is and why I actually wanted to stay out of it. Have a look at other threads in this or the audiophile forum if you don't believe it. I wanted to stay out of this, I just say that I don't believe there is a difference and I have good reason to do so but if others believe it, they may as well tinker with it.

I just wanted to make clear that these kind of issues are what you have to expect if you do things like that.

Apart from that, there are threads on this forum which DO suggest that the network settings on the server do have an effect and since you mentioned that

My NIC was set at ‘100Mbps full duplex’ following advice given elsewhere.

I assumed you did that, too, for sake of SQ,I was probably wrong with that assumption.

I was interested to try and resolve problems I had, and reported what I found, thinking other people might be interested. Sure, if you don't like tinkering, don't, but some do, and some have to.

It was not about tinkering but I wanted to add the advice that if you run into trouble,go for the default settings first.

It has been suggested elsewhere that reducing the load on the Touch can improve the sound quality

It has also been suggested elsewhere that running your server under Windows instead of Linux or using special SATA cables in your server setup will improve SQ. There are a lot of things that are being suggested and you will always find a lot of people who hear "dramatic" differences in SQ once they apply these. Good for them. Even better for certain vendors.

[PasTim]

I didn't introduce religion, I said it's a religious discussion and that's what it is and why I actually wanted to stay out of it. Have a look at other threads in this or the audiophile forum if you don't believe it. I wanted to stay out of this, I just say that I don't believe there is a difference and I have good reason to do so but if others believe it, they may as well tinker with it.

I just wanted to make clear that these kind of issues are what you have to expect if you do things like that.

Apart from that, there are threads on this forum which DO suggest that the network settings on the server do have an effect and since you mentioned that

I assumed you did that, too, for sake of SQ,I was probably wrong with that assumption.

It was not about tinkering but I wanted to add the advice that if you run into trouble,go for the default settings first.


It has also been suggested elsewhere that running your server under Windows instead of Linux or using special SATA cables in your server setup will improve SQ. There are a lot of things that are being suggested and you will always find a lot of people who hear "dramatic" differences in SQ once they apply these. Good for them. Even better for certain vendors.

This is getting out of hand. I will leave a few comments and then ask the sound quality topic be left to rest in this thread. All I was trying to do was to help people use Windows tools to see what might be going on when they have problems.

If you say it is a 'religious' discussion, that's about 'religion'. Best to find different terms or 'religious' people may get upset.

Network settings can cause, and prevent, re-buffering, stuttering and crackling. Not sound quality exactly, but certainly real and annoying effects.

[pallfreeman]

If you say it is a 'religious' discussion, that's about 'religion'. Best to find different terms or 'religious' people may get upset.

"Religious" is being used in the technical sense: something that a person believes despite others having evidence to the contrary. It's quite a common geek use of the word, nothing to get upset about.

[PasTim]

No - that's wrong. ADM reports NO difference when flac or PCM is used - at least that has always been my test result (with both Touch and SB3). If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested to see it / try and reproduce it.

My procedures were somewhat sloppy - I wasn't trying to be very methodical, just tinkering. I don't have the raw data any more, and I'm not enthusiastic enough to want to go through it all again (not least because I have to move stuff around the house to do the tests).

However, with SPDIF into my sound card my notes say I got correlations in the low 90s from a 2 minute piano track compared with the original rip using PCM and mid 70s with FLAC (all at CD quality). Maybe my card didn't like some extra noise or somesuch. Anyhow, that's what I saw, 'wrong' or otherwise.

Having seen that level of difference with SPDIF I didn't try with the analogue out.